- A lot has already been written about Joe Klein's latest
column - a true foray into fantasy. The man is the epitomy of a journalist
who is so self-absorbed, so obsessed with himself, or so lazy that he quite
literally thinks he can just make things up. But sadly, Klein epitomzes
a new brand of journalism sweeping the nation. It's what I call Rectal
Journalism because its based on reporters and pundits simply pulling stuff
right out of their asses and peddling it as fact, when in fact it is anything
but.
-
- Here's what I'm talking about. Klein writes:
-
- "A strong majority would favor the NSA program [Bush
ordered]...Democrats are about as far from the American mainstream on these
issues as Republicans were when they invaded the privacy of Terri Schiavo's
family in the right-to-die case last year."
-
- Klein published his piece one day after the Associated
Press published its poll showing "a majority of Americans want the
Bush administration to get court approval before eavesdropping on people
inside the United States, even if those calls might involve suspected terrorists."
In criticizing the administration for not getting warrants as required
by law, Democrats were standing with 56 percent of the public. By contrast,
ABC News reported that just 27 percent of the public supported the Republicans'
intervention in the Schiavo affair. In other words, Klein made this assertion
even though the hard data was there for him to check. He just chose not
to look at it (and by the way, it was Klein who, during the Schiavo affair,
urged Democrats to support the GOP's actions).
-
- This penchant by pundits to pull things straight out
of their rectum is really becoming a widespread problem - and it has been
on full display over the last few weeks. For example, MSNBC's Chris Matthews
recently painted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) as living a middle-class lifestyle
- days after the Associated Press published an expose actually analyzing
hundreds of documents showing that as DeLay "became a king of campaign
fund-raising, he lived like one, too." Specifically, "over the
past six years, the former House majority leader and his associates have
visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting
there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests."
-
- Then Newsweek's Eleanor Clift called Newt Gingrich a
"bipartisan reformer" in the wake of the revelations about the
GOP corruption. There is, of course, no mention about how Gingrich was
the architect of the K Street Project at the center of the scandals.
-
- Then we saw Time Magazine's Matt Cooper and Mike Allen
pull out of their asses the fairy tale that President Bush is fully distanced
from the GOP corruption scandals because he supposedly "does not like
to have contributors or local officials in his cars, planes or holding
rooms unless they are there for a good reason, and he sometimes questions
his underlings sharply if someone he considers extraneous is admitted."
No, that wasn't the recollection of some acid trip Cooper and Allen had
- they repoted that as fact, and simply decided not to mention that "GOP
fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts
with the new administration" in just its first 10 months, according
to a May 2005 story by the Associated Press.
-
- And there was CNN's Wolf Blitzer claiming that Democrats
took cash directly from Jack Abramoff and are thus equally implicated into
the corruption scandals - again, a line wholly fabricated.
-
- Obviously, this is disturbing on a number of levels.
First and foremost, rectal journalism grossly misinforms the public to
the point where it's actually unfair to blame ordinary citizens for not
knowing what's actually going on in the political system that is supposed
to represent them. How could they know? More and more of what they see,
read and hear is made up fiction by the media "experts."
-
- Additionally, it is quite troubling to look at how Rectal
Journalism is substituting for coverage of truly important stories. For
instance, as the media ramrodded the President's illegal wiretapping into
a "he said, she said" story, fawned all over Newt Gingrich, and
portrayed Democrats as deeply involved in the Abramoff scandal, they wholly
ignored the Bush administration's declaration that the U.S.'s official
foreign policy would be officially taking a radical turn. Also, in their
entire coverage of the New York transit strike, they never once mentioned
that workers were asking for a fraction of what New York city and state
governments had just handed over to Goldman Sachs, the wealthiest investment
bank in the world. And the list of uncovered stories goes on...
-
- To be honest, I'm not sure what can be done to combat
the rise of Rectal Journalism. Because this is not just something that
has happened accidentally. I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I just think
reporters aren't that dumb as to accidentally peddle horseshit as fact.
I think it's a reflex of today's media - whether conscious or subconscious
- to worship power and celebrity, to fear making enemies on the D.C. cocktail
party circuit, and to ignore the stories that are actually important because
they are too hard, or too complex, or too frightening to cover in a serious
way.
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- © 2006 Working Assets.
- http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm? mode=entry&entry=BA2DB1E2-C22D-D4B2-EC2CFD48FE1286A5
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